currybetdotnet Flickr archive
The Apprentice and the unintended consequences of social media
*** WARNING: Contains mild spoilers for last week's 'The Apprentice: Season 5 Episode 8' *** On Wednesday night I was pointed to Scoopler, a real-time search engine, by Phil Bradley's blog. Since The Apprentice had just finished on BBC One, I thought that would make a good test case. Sure enough, a search for The Apprentice turned up lots of tweets. It was an episode where the task was to re-brand the seaside resort of Margate, and one of the...
Web search at the BBC: Extras
Part of the reason for publishing my recent history of the BBC's web search service was because I had unzipped a load of old files on my PC, and discovered the original usability reports. As well as the articles on currybetdotnet, I've also made some material available elsewhere on the net. Presentation On SlideShare you can find a couple of examples of the typical sort of search related presentation I used to give within the BBC in 2003. "BBCi...
My kri-kri photo joins the ARKive
I was recently approached by the ARKive project for permission to use one of my Flickr photos. ARKive is run by British based charity Wildscreen, and the aim is to preserve a multi-media record of the planet's endangered species before they become extinct. Low resolution copies are available for free on the ARKive website, and high resolution copies are kept securely offline to preserve the collection. "Like the wildlife they depict, the images of these rare species are themselves endangered,...
Celebrate the Olympic handover to London on Flickr and YouTube
In just a few days time, at the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, China will hand over the Olympic flag to London. I'm quite relieved it is just the flag actually, because I had this terrible mental image of them handing over the Olympic Flame, and then Boris having to keep it burning in his draw in City Hall for the next four years. He'll be receiving the flag though, from the Mayor of Beijing, in a handover ceremony...
Introducing Olympic Fansivu
As well as Olympic Chipwrapper, I've made an Olympic version of Fansivu - my one page aggregator of user-generated content around a sporting event theme. Olympic Fansivu picks up the latest chatter from Twitter about the Olympics using Tweetscan, and adds links to the latest blog posts appearing on Technorati about the Beijing Games. Photos are automatically pulled in from Flickr, and I've tried something different this time from my Euro2008 Fansivu. Rather than blending a couple of tags...
Interactivity and Flickr at the British Library 'Ramayana' exhibtion
Whilst we were in the UK recently I took the opportunity to go to the British Library exhibition on the Ramayana. I've seen some great exhibitions there over recent years, including 'Front Page' and 'Sacred', but I have to say I found this one a little disappointing. It probably wasn't helped by the fact that when I visited it, it was absolutely swarming with school-kids, and I could barely get to see even a fraction of the main displays. There...
Daily Mail 'fat dog' article takes the copyright biscuit
Now, remind me again, what is it that newspaper publishers are always saying about respecting copyright? I only ask because of this article on the Daily Mail site today about fat pets. As I scrolled down I recognised one of the dogs pictured. He is a local chum of ours from Chania harbour. In fact, I recognised the photograph - posted to Flickr by polietileno. The unnamed Daily Mail journalist who put the article together appears to have simply searched...
When is a stolen photo not a stolen photo?
Earlier this week I was just about to post an item to del.icio.us, when I came to a shuddering and furious halt. No, not because the post I was about to bookmark was giving away the python code to break the captcha of my favourite social bookmarking service, but because of the header image on the Blue Hat SEO blog. It was one of my pictures from my travels around Europe a couple of years back! Now, I was sure...
My Flickr photos from Torcello, Salzburg and Frangokastello on the web
Every now and again I like to write a little run-down of sites that have been using my Creative Commons Licensed photographs from Flickr. With all the moving around Europe I've done since I left the UK in 2005, it isn't much of a surprise to see that the three photographs I've recently been asked about are from three different countries. The About Archaeology site has used one of my shots of the exterior of the Santa Maria Assunta in...
Flickr users protest about Yahoo! takeover. Again.
The interweb's tubes have been buzzing that Flickr users are already in open revolt over Microsoft's offer to take-over Yahoo!, Flickr's parent company. Image by sebestyenistvan "A splinter faction of Flickr photo-sharing community members is threatening a symbolic 'mass suicide'" - Wired "I'm not cross and I'm not bitter - I'm just a little sad because I have a belief that things can be good/great without taking the obvious route". - grange85 "My fear is that over time they won't...
My photographs of Sedlic Ossuary gaining a wider audience
I was contacted a few weeks ago by some people asking if they could use my photographs of Sedlic Ossuary in a 'Sacred Destinations' travel guide for the area, and of course, I was delighted to agree. Sedlic is located in Kutná Hora in the Czech Republic, and was somewhere we visited quite early on in our tour of what is now known as "formerly Eastern Europe". The "attraction" of the church is that it is decorated with bones. "This...
I think I've Schmapped myself
I noticed this in the cartoon strip of one of the London free-sheets at the tail-end of last week, and wondered whether Schmap had actually paid for some product placement, or whether the whole thing was instead a bit of a co-incidence. I however, have not been paying for the product placement of my Creative Commons licenced Flickr photographs within their Schmap guides, which now seem to have grown to cover most of the major cities in Europe I've visited....
I love my Flickr photos being on We Love Crete
I love my new home in Crete. Anastasi & Apostoli love it too - so much so that these members of the Greek diaspora have made a site about it - "We Love Crete". They also obviously love my photography of Chania on Flickr. They've used two of my Creative Commons licensed pictures on the site on their page about Chania....
Testing the dinosaur of image copyright law
Scientists have discovered that apparently predatory dinosaurs could swim, in a story covered by Wired's Science blog last week. They used one of my Flickr photographs to illustrate it. The photograph was on Flickr with a Creative Commons License, and Wired have credited me, which is fine. Well, probably fine, unless you are the Natural History Museum. I suspect that they will feel that they ought to be getting the credit and the link-love for their animatronic dinosaur, rather then...
Last Rounds project featuring some of my photographs of Tube stations
I'm always pleased to see my public Flickr photos being re-used to help new websites, and a little while ago I was approached about using some of my pictures on the "Last Rounds" site. It is a website that concerns itself with public transport and the pursuit of beer. Seeing as that wraps up three of my chief areas of interest, how could I refuse? The Last Rounds project began in response to the new later licensing laws in England....
One of my Flickr photographs inspires a stinky Ficlet
I only discovered Ficlets via a comment on one of my Flickr photos saying it had been the inspiration for a short story. Robotech_Master wrote Territorial based on this picture of mine from Salzburg Zoo Ficlets allows you to post a prequel or sequel to somebody else's short story, so maybe I should write something adjoining the story based around the fact that the lion in Salzburg Zoo actually rejoices in the name "Stinki"?...
Flickr imprvment
I'm well behind the curve on this, as I see it was announced at the end of February, but yesterday I noticed a significant user interaction improvement on Flickr around adding photos to groups you don't currently belong to. The old way was a bit cumbersome. Someone would spot your photo of the lesser-spotted outer Mongolian tortoise-shell widget, and you'd get a Flickrmail saying: Hi, out of your 6,512 photographs, I notice that once, in the corner of one,...
My plastic bag photo is re-cycled by New Consumer
It is always nice to see some of my creative commons licensed photographs on Flickr getting recycled, and last week New Consumer were using one of my pictures of a plastic bag. It is a little ironic actually, as they are using it to illustrate Adam Vaughan's article about "High street pledges to slash plastic bags by 2008" The photo of the Tesco's bag is part of my Flickr series "Things Our Neighbours Have Thrown Into Our Garden". Thanks...
My photos in The World & I Online gallery
I was recently contacted by the World & I Online, asking whether they could feature some of the pictures from my recent travels in their world gallery. This is a subscription based resource for teachers providing images from around the globe for use within classes. They approached me although the Creative Commons license terms I applied to the photographs do not quite match their intended use, and in this case I was happy to waive the Sharealike requirement. I am...
"Church and blur" on Druid Street
I noticed that on Wednesday one of my Flickr photos - Church and blur - was reproduced on the rather enigmatic Druid Street site. It is a picture, I believe, of a French church taken when I was on a school trip there back in the 1980s. It was one of a whole wallet of photographs that my parents recently found, which were taken by me between the ages of 9 and 13. Funnily enough, having posted them on Flickr,...
Walthamstow Dog stadium on The Londonist, Visit London, and my Flickr stream
More of my photographs included in Schmap's European travel guides
Emerging geolocation etiquette on Flickr
"Schmap: Zaragoza Photo Inclusion"
John Peel Day on Flickr and the BBC Homepage
Yahoo! Using Flickr To Supplement News Coverage
Things Our Neighbours Have Thrown Into Our Garden
Sarah Boxer Writes About The 7/7 Community On Flickr in The New York Times
Graffiti on Novy Most -> Wormfood
Search this site
Talks & presentations
"Journalism in the digital age"
I'll be appearing on a panel with Sarah Hartley and Iain Hepburn at the Edinburgh International Science Festival on Sunday April 11th. More details...
Posts of the moment
Day of the Triffids
If everyone suddenly went blind, how long would the Internet survive, and could you still publish news on it?
With professionals of this quality, who needs 'citizen journalist' enemies?
It is hard to argue that ethics and quality set the 'professional journalist' apart from the amateur blogger, if the 'professional' keeps publishing articles so wrong that they have to be deleted.
Read more about...
- The future of news
- IA and UX events
- Local and hyperlocal news
- Martin Belam talks and presentations
- Media policy and regulation
- New media best practice
- Newspaper website design
- Notes and quotes from media and web events
- 'Old' media relationship with 'new' media
- Site search management and design
- Working at the BBC (2000 - 2005)
- Working at The Guardian (2008 - now)
Also on the site
or any current or former employers or clients.
Contact: martin dot belam at currybet dot net. © Martin Belam where appropriate.
Powered by Movable Type. Hosted by Bytemark. Manufactured in Great Britain.
